NEW YORK - Bringing the world’s fastest growing motorsport into the heart of New York City has been on the minds of Red Bull Air Race organizers for the last six years and now -- after three years of intense preparations -- the goal of racing on one of the planet’s biggest stages and in front of a live U.S. television audience has been achieved.
The June 19/20 race over the Hudson River between New York and New Jersey will be the first major international motorsport race staged in the heart of the largest city in the United States and is the culmination of unrelenting efforts to make it happen, Red Bull Air Race CEO Bernd Loidl said. The race will be watched by tens of thousands on both sides of the Hudson River and broadcast live on television around the world. In the United States the race will be aired live on Fox Television.
“It’s been a dream ever since we did the first race in the heart of a city in Budapest back in 2004,” Loidl said. After that race on the banks of the Danube in front of a crowd of 500,000, Loidl and other top race officials drafted a list of cities where the race could be staged with the New York at the top. “There’s something special about New York and it marks a milestone for the Red Bull Air Race. It’s a city with enormous appeal and tremendous assets. It’s an icon for the entire world, one of its truly great cities.”
The New York race is indeed a watershed moment in the history of the Red Bull Air Race. New York will be the 49th race since it was launched in 2003. The rapid growth of the sport has been reflected in the enormous crowds -- up to 1 million spectators. Red Bull Air Races in Spain, Australia and Portugal have attracted crowds of up to 800,000 that shattered national records for largest open air sporting events. Not surprisingly, the list of cities eager to host races has grown exponentially thanks, in part, to the significant economic stimulus generated by the races -- estimated to be about $100 million or more.
More and more television networks around the world are broadcasting the race. The Red Bull Air Race has won two Sports Emmy® Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. In 2009 the Red Bull Air Race World Championship was watched by 270 million TV viewers in 183 countries. ”We’re thrilled to be going to New York,” said Loidl, who was in New York in April to collect the second Sports Emmy® Award in two years. “It’s truly a special place to race.”
Loidl said there many hurdles in New York to overcome to get the necessary clearances from various local and federal authorities. There was some initial wariness about staging a high-speed, low-altitude race in the middle one of the world’s biggest metropolitan areas. But city and state officials on both sides of the Hudson River along with the host of authorities involved have become enthusiastic supporters.
“I’m not aware of any other international or national motorsport that has been able to stage a race in New York,” he said. “That’s due to the one-of-a-kind conditions of New York. The Red Bull Air Race has a unique advantage in that we bring the entire racing infrastructure with us and then, after the race, pack it all back up and take it with us. We’re going to put the incredible Manhattan skyline in our race as perhaps one of the most unforgettable backdrops you can have. We’re the first motorsport that has dared to go to New York, and with the help of the local authorities we’ve been able to find a way to make it happen.”
It also helped that the Red Bull Air Race, now in its eighth year overall and sixth year as a world championship recognized by the FAI (Fédération Aéronautique Internationale), has built up a strong reputation in major cities around the world for top-notch organization and an uncompromising approach towards safety. Races have been staged in such cities Rio de Janeiro, London, Barcelona, Berlin, San Diego, Detroit, San Francisco, Porto and Perth, Australia.
“We’ve built up a solid track record over the years and demonstrated to the authorities that we have a highly professional team that won’t accept any compromises as far as safety is concerned,” Loidl said. “We’ve held dozens of tremendously successful races over the years in the middle of many of the great cities around the world, over rivers, over harbors, and over coastlines. We’ve had the best record you can have for safety. We’ve got the world’s best pilots and we’re always pushing the envelope to take safety and security and the whole race experience to the next level.”
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